Christian Pulisic is on the cover of TIME magazine as the face of the American World Cup, and he hasn’t scored for his country since November 2024 — a brace against Jamaica, a 4-2 blowout that nobody was watching, a result that barely mattered. That was going on 19 months ago. The Pulisic USMNT goal drought has now stretched across eight straight national team appearances, and the June 12 opener against Paraguay at SoFi Stadium is two weeks away.
His response to the obvious question, asked by TIME: “I plan on scoring goals.” Then: “Such bad questions. I’m not concerned about it, man.”
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Landon Donovan, who was that player for multiple US World Cup cycles and carries the receipts to prove it, had a different read. “Well, if I’m in his shoes now, I’m very worried.” Donovan said it on Fox Sports, and it landed the way those things land when the person saying it has actually lived inside the pressure he’s describing.
The gap between those two statements is the entire USMNT 2026 anxiety, made measurable.
The easy explanation for the Pulisic World Cup 2026 drought — club form versus country, AC Milan’s system under Allegri restricting him, the creative attacking midfielder forced into service as the team’s de facto everything — used to hold together reasonably well. It doesn’t anymore. His last Milan goal was December 28, 2025. He went 17 to 20 consecutive club games without scoring to close out the Serie A season. The dual drought — club and country — takes the system excuse off the table. Something else has been going on, and nobody has a clean answer for what.
The numbers frame it charitably: eight goals, four assists across 29 Milan appearances, second in scoring at the club for the season. Strong production through the first half of the calendar, then a wall. For USMNT, he has 32 career goals across 84 caps — fifth all-time. Two goals behind Eric Wynalda in fourth place. The career track still reads like the résumé of an all-time great, which is part of what makes the current moment so strange.
Donovan’s full quote matters, because it isn’t a condemnation. He followed the worry with this: “What needs to happen, guys, is between now and June 12th, we need to find some way…for the ball to hit him somehow and go in the net one time. I promise you, if it goes in one time, it’ll be done.” That’s not a verdict. That’s a man who understands the psychology of drought, who knows exactly what it feels like when the frame of the game warps around a goal you haven’t scored, who believes the dam breaks the moment it breaks.
Mauricio Pochettino has been trying to engineer that moment. He moved Pulisic to center forward against Portugal in a pre-tournament warm-up, an explicit tactical concession to the problem. Pulisic forced saves. No goal.
Weston McKennie was diplomatic about the Pulisic World Cup 2026 situation: “I don’t think any of us are worried whether he’s going to be firing on all cylinders.” That’s the teammate answer. Donovan’s answer was the honest one.
What Pulisic is carrying into this tournament is the weight of a specific kind of exposure — the kind that comes when the stage gets big enough to magnify everything. He is, per TIME, “already the most influential American men’s soccer player in the country’s 250-year history.” He plays for a USMNT that finally has striker depth to spare — Folarin Balogun, Ricardo Pepi, Haji Wright — which means he doesn’t need to be the primary scorer. The system can absorb a dry spell. Pochettino’s setup, unlike Allegri’s at Milan, was actually designed to use him. The contextual case for optimism is real, and Pulisic knows how to make it. “There’s so many ups and downs in this sport,” he told TIME. “I see the World Cup as an opportunity.”
He also said: “You have to have that kind of delusional confidence.”
Maybe. But Donovan’s version of confidence came earned — he played in three World Cups, scored the goal that sent the US through in South Africa in 2010, and still described the weight of being the guy as something you feel in your shoes. His worry isn’t pessimism. It’s pattern recognition.
On Pochettino’s roster decisions heading into the tournament, the construction around Pulisic has been deliberate — build a team that doesn’t need him to score to win, so that when he does score, it’s acceleration rather than salvation. The theory is sound.
The Pulisic USMNT goal drought will end, or it won’t, and this World Cup will be defined in part by which one happens. Donovan’s math is simple: one goal, and it’s done. Pulisic’s math is simpler. He plans on scoring goals.
Two weeks to find out who’s right.
